Folktales

Name: Folktales
Genre: Documentary
Released: July 25, 2025
Duration: 105 min
Rating: 73

2025

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Generally favorable reviews based on 18 Critic Reviews

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Movie Details & Credits

Magnolia Pictures | Release Date: July 25, 2025 | Not Rated

Summary: Exhausted by loneliness, social anxiety, and all the crushing barrage of pressures felt by their generation, three teenagers leave the comforts of home to enroll in a traditional “folk high school” in the wilds of northernmost Norway. Dropped in the arctic wilderness for one year, Hege, Romain, and Bjørn Tore must rely only on themselvesExhausted by loneliness, social anxiety, and all the crushing barrage of pressures felt by their generation, three teenagers leave the comforts of home to enroll in a traditional “folk high school” in the wilds of northernmost Norway. Dropped in the arctic wilderness for one year, Hege, Romain, and Bjørn Tore must rely only on themselves and a pack of loyal sled dogs as they take the daunting step from childhood to adulthood. Freed from technology, social media, and the noise of modern life, this brave trio learns to face themselves for the first time, and experience an unexpected transformation.… Expand

Genre(s): Documentary

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 105 min

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Critic Reviews

Kimberley Jones

Jul 31, 2025

By film’s end, my cheeks were wet with feeling so many feelings for these young people just getting going. I am in awe of their boldness. Read full review

IndieWire Kate Erbland

Jan 30, 2025

We are treated to all the joys and pains of 10 transformative months, with Ewing and Grady taking us inside an experience that’s both specific and oddly universal. Read full review

Tara Brady

Dec 3, 2025

Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady cemented their reputation for tender portraits of young people blossoming away from home with their earlier films The Boys of Baraka, Detropia and the Oscar-nominated Jesus Camp. With Folktales, the veteran documentary duo return to familiar thematic terrain with renewed compassion. Read full review

The Film Stage Dan Mecca

Jul 23, 2025

Folktales captures a crucial moment in the lives of these young adults amidst a very particular setting with stark, unblinking honesty. Read full review

Ana Carpenter

Jul 25, 2025

At its best, Folktales paints a grounded, nuanced picture of what it means to be a young person. Read full review

Daniel Fienberg

Jan 30, 2025

Folktales is an easily embraceable coming-of-age documentary that makes up for what it lacks in depth with its surplus of wise, vaguely anthropomorphized canine companions. Read full review

Anna McKibbin

Jul 23, 2025

Though it aspires to be a thought-provoking take on the coming-of-age story, Grady and Ewing’s doc never overcomes its uninspiring filmmaking to meet the profundity of the experience it represents. Read full review

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